At last month’s meeting of the Arctic Circle – an association of governments, non-governmental organisations, academic institutions, and civil society groups with an interest in the Arctic – the increasing presence of China showed how geopolitical competition in the region has been renewed, and is being amplified by the accelerating impacts of climate change and the melting of the circumpolar sea ice.
The Arctic, if anyone considered it at all, was preemptively the concern of the eight nations with direct...